After a long ago collegiate career on my university’s cross country team and nearly annual attendance watching the New York City Marathon at points near the various Brooklyn neighborhoods I’ve lived in over the past decade, I’ve always been a sucker for the allure of distance running.

I just never understood fully what it meant to Boston.

Having never attended the annual Patriots’ Day race until Monday’s 118th incarnation, I knew that it was one of nation’s toughest races to qualify for, with the bulk of its entrants (27,000 out of 36,000 in 2014) required to hit a challenging time in a previous marathon. For years, I listened as friends from the area trumpeted the Patriots’ Day race and Red Sox combo and its importance as a local holiday, but paid it the same attention as I would most provincial boasting about the success of Boston’s sports franchises.

Even as the incredible stories of renewal and recovery after last year’s bombings helped define that significance for the nation, it took some of the people I met along a four mile stretch of the course from Framingham (just shy of the nine-mile mark) through Wellesley (the race’s 13.2 mile halfway mark) to really drive home what the collective atmosphere of this race is like in person.

There were Tom and Janet Conrow of Independence, Missouri, who have traveled halfway across the country for each of the past seven years to stand for hours manning a water station near the nine-mile mark. The race has become an annual reunion for the couple, who were joined by four family members as well as numerous return volunteers who’ve helped at that same spot for more than a decade.

A little farther down the road, five-year-old Alex Lundston stood in front of his two-story house in Natick next to a tray holding about 20 cups of lemonade. The impromptu refreshment stand was fully his idea, his father Craig said, a desire to do something to help all of the runners who’d be passing through his town.

Bill Clark hoists his giant cardboard sign.(Chris Strauss/FTW)

While Alex Lundston was only watching his third Boston Marathon, 76-year-old Bill Clark has been attending them since 1951. The retired teacher had the biggest sign of anyone in the massive crowd outside St. Patrick’s Church in Natick Center, co-opting Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that “We Own That Finish Line.” Nearly three hours after I first saw Clark hoisting his sign on Route 135 for the lead men’s pack, he was in the same spot, sitting but still holding the giant piece of cardboard, with hardly any other spectators around him. Almost all of the race’s 36,000 runners had gone by, save for a few stragglers.

“As long as there are still runners out here, I’ll stay and cheer,” Clark told me.

At nearly every house, business and vacant patch of road along these towns, there were people out celebrating the spectacle of this event. As runners strolled through, they listened to a man playing a full drum set from a neighboring porch. They listened to dogs from a nearby kennel howl at the noise, as if raising their own voices in support. There were kids jumping on mini trampolines. There were college girls holding signs asking runners for kisses.

And the support was reciprocated. I watched one runner in the back of the back trot over to an elderly couple watching in front of their home and thank them “for being out here and sharing the road.” Police officers, volunteers and military personnel were routinely shown their appreciation by the athletes and spectators.

It was the most collectively positive sporting event I’ve ever had the privilege to witness and I was only able to take in four miles of the journey. Maybe I should start training again.

More of today’s big winners:Five Boston Marathon running strangers: They all stopped to pick up a collapsed fellow runner and help him across the finish line.

David Leon Moore: The USA TODAY Sports writer completed his sixth consecutive Boston Marathon, finishing in an impressive 3:42:45. His essay about what the race means was even better.

Kevin Durant: His freakish four-point play helped force an unlikely overtime versus the Grizzlies. The Thunder couldn’t hold on, but that shot (and his entire game) demonstrated why the superstar has likely earned his first MVP award.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – I fully get it now. After a long ago collegiate career on my university’s cross country (…)

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